Book of Common Prayer

King Agrippa hears Paul, who describes his calling from the beginning.

26 Agrippa said to Paul, You are permitted to speak for yourself. Then Paul stretched forth his hand and answered for himself:

² I think myself fortunate, King Agrippa, because I may answer this day before you to all the things I am accused of by the Jews, ³ especially because you are expert in all the customs and questions that are among the Jews. Therefore I beseech you to hear me patiently.

⁴ My life from my childhood, which was at first among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews ⁵ who knew me from the beginning know, if they would testify it. For in accordance with the most strict sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. ⁶ And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷ to which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God day and night, hope to attain. For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. ⁸ Why should it be thought a thing incredible to you, that God should raise the dead up again?

⁹ I also truly thought in myself that I ought to do many things to utterly oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth – ¹⁰ which things I also did in Jerusalem, where I shut up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the high priests. And when they were put to death, I joined in giving the sentence. ¹¹ And I punished them often in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and was even more mad upon them, and persecuted them even to distant cities.

¹² In going about these things, as I was going to Damascus with leave and authority from the high priests, ¹³ at midday, O King, I saw in the road a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round about me and those who were journeying with me. ¹⁴ When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks. ¹⁵ And I said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute. ¹⁶ But rise and stand up on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose: to make you a minister and a witness both of those things you have seen, and of those things in which I will appear to you, ¹⁷ delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles to whom I now send you, ¹⁸ to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, and may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

¹⁹ And so, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰ but preached first to those of Damascus, and then at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do the right works of repentance. ²¹ Because of this, the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me. ²² Nevertheless, I obtained help from God, and continue to this day witnessing both to small and to great, speaking of no other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say would come: ²³ that Christ would suffer, and that he would be the first to rise from death, and would show light to the people and to the Gentiles.

¹⁴ Moreover, when you see the abomination that betokens desolation, of which Daniel the prophet has spoken, standing where it ought not, let him who reads, understand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁵ And let him who is on the housetop not descend down into the house, neither enter in to fetch anything out of his house. ¹⁶ And let him who is in the field not turn back again to those things that he left behind him, to take his clothes with him. ¹⁷ Woe shall be then to women that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. ¹⁸ But pray that your flight be not in the winter. ¹⁹ For there shall be in those days such tribulation as was not from the beginning of creatures that God created to this time, nor will be again. ²⁰ And if the Lord did not shorten those days, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened those days.

²¹ And then if anyone says to you, Lo, here is Christ! Lo, he is there! –  believe it not. ²² For false Christs will arise, and false prophets, and they will show miracles and wonders, to deceive if it were possible even the elect. ²³ But take heed: behold, I have told you all things beforehand.

²⁴ Moreover in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will grow dark, and the moon will not give her light, ²⁵ and the stars of heaven will fall; and the powers which are in heaven shall move. ²⁶ And then will they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷ And then he will send his angels, and will gather together his elect from the four winds, and from one end of the world to the other.